Game Day Snack Your Man Will Love!

So, I've finally convinced Andy to try a new jalapeño popper recipe so I could post on the blog. 

After his first bite, a nod and smile appears across his face. That's when I knew I had to share this recipe. Your husbands will thank you on game day. 

Ingredients:

-8 slices of bacon (if you're a bacon lover, you can do less if you want)

-16 one inch squared sliced jalapeños

-1 package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

-pillsbury crescent rolls (8 count)

Directions:

1. Cook bacon as directed. Slice. 

2. Preheat oven to 375 (as directed on pillsbury dough). De-seed jalapeños and slice.  

3. Roll out crescents. Cut in half with pizza cutter depending on how big you want to make them. 

4. Cut a slice (teaspoon) of cream cheese, out on bottom, add bacon and add jalapeño on top.

5. Roll up dough to cover the yummy inside ingredients! 

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes. 

Cool. Enjoy! 

What's your husband or boyfriend's favorite game day snack? Share with me your recipe by commenting below!

-Mandy

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Easy To Make Granola Bites!

Sometimes it's so difficult to find yummy, yet good for you snacks. Luckily, I stumbled across a recipe on Pinterest that caught my eye, yet I thought I would try and make some modifications. So here it is, yummy butterscotch granola bites!

The hubby also approves (and he usually only likes my yummy baking, but not very good for you recipes). 

Ingredients:

2/3 cups toasted coconut flakes (I had to toast mine for only 8 minutes in the oven until brown)

1 cup uncooked oats

1/3 cup honey

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 

1/2 cup ground flax seed

1/2 cup butterscotch chips (or you could use chocolate chips instead) 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

I toasted my flaked coconuts to brown for right minutes. Do this while putting all other ingredients together (wait to out morsel chips in until last or they'll be gooey. 

Mix together...

Then roll them into little balls. Makes about a dozen and half. I put mine in Tupperware and keep in the fridge. 

Easy to make and healthy for you! 

-Mandy   

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Everyone Loves Burlap!

Fall is officially here and that means football season is here for the Meadows' household.

Since my crafting abilities have been slowly improving, I thought I would take a shot at incorporating the oh-so-popular burlap wreath with my alma mater. At first, I had a difficult time trying to figure out what kind of wreath to make. Of course, I ventured onto Pinterest to find some inspirational ideas and took the one qualities I liked from each wreath I saw and made my own.

After making my own, I already have had one close family friend request a wreath. Not too shabby, eh? So I thought I would share with you the burlap, fun process (it’s really not that difficult!)

What you’ll need:

·         2 rolls of large burlap (Michael’s or Hobby Lobby)

·         1 medium sized wreath wire (looks green)

·         Any other ribbons you wish to add (I added maroon ribbon and more burlap chevron)

·         Small pieces of wire to tie your ribbon/burlap to the frame (You could even use paper clips if you want to!)

1.       You’ll notice the wire wreath has 3 lines. Cut a piece of wire (or use a paper clip or pipe cleaner) and wrap the beginning of your burlap on the bottom (3^rd line).

2.       Now, grab more of your burlap and start scrunching it in a loop format into the 2^nd line of wire wreath. Repeat. I did two loops per section of the wreath.

3.       Continue to loop and repeat once first batch of burlap is finished. You can also puff out the loops to make bigger, or smaller - Whichever you prefer.

4.       At this point, you’ll want to get whatever extra ribbon you want to put on and do the exact same thing, but have it spread out throughout the wreath and make sure not to do any loops too closely together. Luckily, if it looks strange, you can always re-arrange and retry.

5.       I also thought I’d make a flag banner. I just bought some felt at Hobby Lobby, made a triangle cut out and used it as a guide (to keep all flags the same), and some foam letters and hot glued them together.

6.       Tada!

Great thing is, this wreath can be more of a ‘fall’ wreath as well and not be football related.

Share with me some burlap wreaths you like or have made! I love seeing new wreath ideas!

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Baby Minky Blanket For My Niece

I'm so excited about next month, I finally get to meet my niece Cali (even though we've hung out a few times -- she even punched my hand, haha!). My sister is due October 11 and couldn't be happier. 

I made a blanket out of soft dotted Minky last month and had a ton leftover. I thought I'd make an easy, quick blanket for Cali with the soft dotted Minky. I went to Hobby Lobby and noticed they had a Vera Bradley look alike fabric on sale, so I thought I'd get some for her blanket. 

It was really easy. Cut into squares. Lay the dotted Minky that you want facing upward and the fabric facing down. Put batting. See. Leave one side open, sew. DONE! 

Ta-Da!!! 

-Mandy 

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Great Workout & A Yummy Recipe!

So, I've worked out 3 times this week already and feel so much better about myself and how my body feels. I was also in a meeting this morning at work involving a fitness team that goes to marathons. My goal is to participate at my work's event to run my first marathon. The first one is in March, so hopefully I can get in shape by that point!

I thought I would post another great recipe I have been making for lunch - pasta salad! It's yummy, easy to make, and gives multiple lunches.

You can make it however you want. I use the following:

Rotini multi colored noodles
Italian dressing
Crushed pecans
Feta cheese
Sliced tomato
Sliced bellpepper
Olives sliced
Raw broccoli
Artichoke Hearts sliced

Mix together and you have a healthy, yummy lunch!:)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

-Mandy

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New Year & Wow I am bad at keeping up with this...

First off, I want to apologize on not updating in a year! I guess each year I have the goal to log all the fun I have throughout the year. Unfortunately, work takes over my life. I truly want to keep up with my blog! First section will be about 2011, so feel free to fast-forward and skip to the second section for 2012.

2011 was amazing from the beginning. My last blog was about the house that we ended up building! Andy and I were truly blessed to build a brand new home with a 4 minute walk to Lake Lewisville. Building finished middle of June and we moved in during the Fourth of July weekend.






Shortly after we moved in, we decided to buy a jet-ski to take advantage of being so close to the water. Sadly, by the time we bought it we didn't get to take it out for very long due to the low water levels.


We also went on a last-minute trip for a long weekend in Cancun for the first time. It was beautiful! We stayed at an all-inclusive resort and enjoyed the wonderful beach!




Near the end of September, a great opportunity came forth as well as a sad occurrence. My grandfather passed away the same week I started my new position at the movie theatre corporate office. It was very difficult, but was a blessing to go into town with my sister and see family for a reunion and remembrance. He would have wanted that. My new job has been a huge step-up in my career as well as working for a large corporation. It's very different compared to the higher-ed field. The cool thing about this job, I work closely with studios on promotions, I get to be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more to push marketing for the movies on all social channels. Such an amazing opportunity and I LOVE the work ethic. Everyone is so nice and I certainly feel that I will be there for quite a while. Another great reason for switching was the commute. 35-40 minute commute cut to 15 minutes... don't mind if I do! Plus, I get to sleep in later :) As the end of the year closed in, Andy's Ford truck was hopping on its last leg. We decided to get a brand new tahoe (2011 - Texas Edition - Black). We love it so much!


2012 has high hopes. We are currently looking at two trips this summer - Vegas and going to the Caribbean as well. Might there be a bundle of joy in 2013? We just don't know if we are ready yet... we are enjoying our marriage right now! Plus, Andy and I just got our gym membership and started back on our eat-right, workout routine. It's a slow start getting back into shape, but I hope to feel confident and look sexy when we go on our trips in the summer! ;-)

The hopes I can do with this blog is to keep track of my workout/eating habits as well as keeping up with the fun in our life. If you want to keep up with me and my workouts, or see some awesome ideas. Follow me on Pinterest (via Facebook) and see some cool recipes, clothing, fitness, etc. that I do.

I have already tried certain recipes from Pinterest and LOVE THEM. I will post on here so I can share great recipes for you. See my first one, which is pretty easy. It was more of an "ice cream", but I made it more into a shake. I revised it a little and made the following:

After-Workout Yummy Shake To Rebuild:
- 1/2 scoop of Whey Protein Powder - Cookies n' Cream (you can get these at grocery stores near nutrition/vitamin area)
- 1 cup skim milk
- 1 medium banana
- 1 tsp. cocoa powder


Hope you stay tuned for more! :)

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Potential New Home and iMac... ALL IN ONE?!

Today was a very good day (thank goodness!)!

Andy and I have been looking at used homes for the past couple months. Finally, Andy broke the news to his dad about possibly moving (hoping he'd be for it), and he was ecstatic! One suggestion he made was to look into NEW neighborhoods within our price range. Even if it was a little bit more of a drive, it would be better in the long run. Andy and I did some research and ventured to Frisco this past weekend to take a look at a neighborhood we were interested in from our research. Upon driving up to Frisco and passing the area, I was already excited. From our previous months looking at other areas closer to Fort Worth, I was not pleased. It's crazy that even before seeing the neighborhood I already felt like this is the area I wanted to be at. We finally drove into the neighborhood and I was even more excited. We noticed some houses where the framing and foundation were up so Andy and I decided to take a look in a couple. The last house we were walking around in, we noticed a car pull up to the house next to the one being developed. A woman came up and asked "Are you the ones that bought this home?" Andy and I shook our heads and said "No, we are just browsing this neighborhood looking to buy a new home." She said that the couple who bought the house looked like us. She then offered for us to come into her house and take a look. She was so nice and reminded me exactly like my great aunt. So, we toured her house and loved it. It's a 3 bed/2 bath home that backs up to the woods with a beautiful rod iron fence that lines the back yard. It's the path to the lake which is probably only a mile or so? The amazing thing about this homebuilder is that they offer ammenities. The lady said you get washer, dryer, fridge, stove, microwave, sprinkler system, alarm system, $15k in upgrades (like stainless steel appliances, adding stone to the front, granite counter tops for bathroom and kitchen, etc.), andddd a free 50 inch flat screen TV! Whoop whoop! The lady was very honest and up front with us. It was great getting to see a finished floor plan that was exactly what Andy and I were looking for. We also chatted with her other neighbor that she has been friends with for a while. The neighbor was using a different homebuilder in the same area and did not like them after a lot of complaints and decided to switch to the builder we are going to use. So, after our adventure with the nice lady we decided to talk to the homebuilder. She gave us a folder with the ammenities and what they offered, but found out that the only available open fence with the beautiful scenery was already in negotiation. I was very bumbed about it because it was so beautiful and could definitely see ourselves with a house like that (reminds me of the hill country almost). So we decided to leave and think about it with other options. The other issue that came to mind was our lease for our current place that is not up until August. The builder suggested that the relator could help us "buyout" our lease. Andy went to our office and it would have been almost $10K for breaking our lease. I was even more bummed, but Andy said that we wouldn't need a relator since we will end up building. So, Andy decided to contact the builder again to set up an appointment and asked when the earliest we can reserve a lot to build. The excellent news she wrote back and said, "You can reserve a lot right now if you'd like. We also have one more available lot with the fence. The view is beautiful." ...WOW! Andy and I were in shock, excited, and it's too good to be good! Not only can we reserve a lot NOW and not have to pay for breaking our lease in August, BUT we also get the AMAZING lot with the view! :) We are meeting with her on Thursday to go over what is involved, contracts, etc.

I'm not 100 percent "YES WE ARE BUYING A HOME" yet, but we are one step closer and the closest we have ever been!


A second great thing, I decided I have the funds to by myself an iMac. I contacted my work's "purchasing" person and he's looking into an iMac for me. I should get it in about a week. :D :D :D

And yes, Chuy wanted to say 'Hi':

Till next time...

~Mandy

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